Wednesday, November 7, 2012
THE HOMELESS PRIME MINISTER
Friday, October 5, 2012
THE KOREAN DEATH OF A TIGREAN DESPOT
Meles Zenawi , a man who identified himself as a Tigrean (his ethnic group) and hated Ethiopia, was not able to say all reports of my death are exaggerated though his death was announced long before he kicked the bucket from an ailment that his friends have decided to keep secret. His death was late by Ethiopian standards and expectations while his masters, loyalists and sycophants wailed at his “sudden” passing away.
The death of this cruel despot has highlighted the degeneration of his regime unto a North Korean type of immense shame and parody and has exposed the level of ridicule that sycophants can sink into voluntarily. For most Ethiopians, Meles Zenawi was dead more than a decade ago when he emerged as a narrow Tigrean nationalist and advocated the breaking up of Ethiopia based on ethnicity. The corpse moved on spreading havoc, ceding Ethiopian land to the Sudan, forcing thousands of peasants and pastoralists out of their land and handing it over cheaply to environmental disaster making Indians, Chinese and Arab so called investors, fanning ethnic and religious division, proving himself as a loyal puppet of the West. Meles Zenawi was a pest hated by Ethiopians as much as the cursed famine that plagued the country time and again including under his rule. Those who declared that the people respected the tyrant do not know the meaning of respect.
The North Korean type funeral show was, to put it mildly, disgusting. Quite a few uninformed souls and those who had deliberately been covering up for the despot talked of Ethiopians “mourning their leader”. Ethiopians in the know wonder even if the tears of Azeb Mesfin, the wife of Meles, were for real. The choreographed funeral show suggested that the tyrant died before they announced it and they had had time to prepare for the show. The sight of North Koreans when their tormentor Kim Jong Il died a few years ago was a comedy of sorts—with soldiers and women and citizens all wailing for the camera (see below) . No one missed the fact that they were all marshaled out and ordered to weep. The Meles cabal has done the same. State media interviewed street children and the homeless who “proudly” declared that Meles brought security and development and they were thus able to sleep on the streets without fear of any violence. Thank you Meles indeed! Families mourning the deaths of their kin were rounded out of their tents and taken to the government erected tent of mourning for Meles and told to cry there and get filmed and interviewed by the State controlled TV/media. And with the official cameramen active with their videos who dares not to be seen weeping? Money was paid to drag out tears out of people who were otherwise full of joy to see the dictator dead. Evidently, Meles was genuinely mourned by those whose life and wealth depended on him, the young and inept officers raised to higher ranks by him and all those who feared his death may herald the end of the Tigrean front’s domination and control of Ethiopia. Paid for and choreographed mourning. Even refugees in Khartoum seeking laissez passer documents to return to Ethiopia were told that they have to publicly mourn and demonstrate support for Meles before they get the paper. If you do not weep you are punished. Remember Kim Jong IL’s death. This was the report with photos to accompany it:
“ North Korea's hardline regime is punishing those who did not cry at the death of dictator Kim Jong-il, according to reports.
Sentences of at least six months in labour camps are also apparently being given to those who didn't go to the organized mourning events, while anyone who criticized the new leader Kim Jong-un is also being punished.
Those who tried to leave the country, or even made a mobile phone call out, were also being disciplined, it has been claimed.
Hysteria: North Korean soldiers mourn Kim Jong-il at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace
Real or fake? Pyongyang residents react as they mourn over the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
Weeping: Children weep at the death of the supreme leader, Did theynreally know who he was?
And the foreigners who enjoyed his servitude, who have been given Ethiopian land to exploit or, as in the case of the Sudan, to take as theirs are also sad. And those who have established military bases on our soil and were able to use Ethiopians as cannon fodders for their wars in the region (the tennis court partner of Meles was none other than the American ambassador). And political fools like Bill Gates and African dictators who lost a brother. For all these, Meles was an intelligent leader, a visionary, and for Bill Gates, who only talked no more than a few hours with the forked tongue Meles, Ethiopians are enjoying great health progress thanks to Meles. If there has been so much progress in the health sector how come Meles went to tiny Belgium for medical treatment? The malaise is actually widespread—many African leaders go abroad for routine medical check up and some of them die there also. In Ethiopia, the health system has almost collapsed, the public hospitals are a disgrace, the private clinics expensive and most of the time ran by quack doctors who Swear to God. Bill Gates attended the tyrant’s funeral and was quoted praising the departed. Not more than 5% of children are vaccinated, life expectancy is 56 years at best and infant mortality rate among the highest in the world. The budget for health is only 3.6 % and so one wonders why Bill Gates talks of miracles in the health sector. Susan Rice represented Barack Obama who has himself praised the defunct (many Ethio-Americans had voted for Obama and I am sure some of them for whom Ethiopia does not matter will do so again) and gushed out praise and eulogy to a murderer and a war criminal . She has for long been a political idiot of sorts who advocated the cover up of the Rwandan genocide arguing that using the G word may not be good during election time. The Meles eulogized by Susan Rice never lived in Ethiopia. If he was “uncommonly wise” as Rice claimed unabashedly he would have ruled Ethiopia democratically, depending on the choice and will of the people and would not have relied on repression and massacres to stay in power. What is being intelligent and wise anyway? Serving Washington or being wise enough to gain the support of the people to justify one’s rule? The foreigners loved Meles so much so that Ethiopians wonder if there were two Meleses in the world. Ethiopians know a street smart lying tyrant, responsible for the killing and disappearance of thousands, an ethnic fanatic with enough hatred to arm an anti people WMD, the butcher of the Ogaden and Gambella, the man who has more than 35,000 political prisoners in his dungeons and secret prisons, a cruel and corrupt anti Ethiopian who has aggravated the impoverishment of Ethiopians. 12 million people depend on food aid, inflation is at 25% minimum and even people in the urban areas are unable to afford two miserly meals per day. Meles, one apologist said, was not corrupt “in the usual sense” but the despot was corrupt in the best African sense whisking away, along with his wife and family, no less than 2 billion dollars. He may have no Swiss bank account but he has American, British, Cayman Islands and Malaysian bank accounts. Meles was corrupt since his guerrilla days, depositing millions of dollars in the Saudi American bank (Jeddah) and buying property in London and other European cities. He used more than a hundred million dollars of aid money to the famished for his own speculation and trading in the stock market. Bob Geldof mya deny it but even LiveAid was swindled and the money used for buying arms. If there is any economic benefit it is in and around the palace and around the Tigrean ruling elite and does not concern the majority of the poor Ethiopian people.
The West helped and backed Meles and his Tigrean group long before the tyrant took power. Meles worked, hand in glove, with Britain and the USA, with Germany and Sweden, with Norway, Libya and the Sudan. He sold Ethiopia long before he got to control the country. He chased away the South Sudan SPLM and opened the border for the Sudan of Omar Beshir to attack the SPLA (the present rulers of South Sudan seem to have forgotten this!). He was instrumental in the secession of Eritrea and gave permission for the security forces of Isaias Afewerki to murder Eritrean dissidents on Ethiopian soil. Most of all, Meles proved a determined puppet, backing the invasion of Iraq, registering as a foot soldier in the so called war against terrorism, serving the West’s interest in the Horn and all over Africa and invading Somali twice to serve Western interests. This and more is what have made him adorable in the eyes of the West. This is why the West lies about the reality of Ethiopia and hails and praises the predator of the free press and one of the vilest human rights violators in Africa. As Susan Rice knows, dictators like Nguema and Idris Deby, not to mention Museveni, Kagame and many others, are tolerated and praised because they are America’s babies. As Kirkpatrick said years ago, because they are “our own SOB s”. Meles was an SOB par excellence and those who hailed the mass killer are no less guilty of condoning his crime against the Ethiopian people.
And where is the so called economic progress? It is not an endangered animal but an extinct one. Hirelings like Abdul Mohamed (a confirmed CIA operative now working in Darfur) and so called human rights activist Alex de Waal (a long time Meles groupie) have even dared to assert that Meles has followed the Chinese path and transformed Ethiopia. What transformation? A ring road in Addis Abeba? Half built buildings? Shoddy roads? The lack of electricity and drinkling water? A stinking city? Half a million homeless and more than 75% below the poverty level? An agricultural sector in ruins and permanent starvation stalking the land? A modern hotel in remote Hawzein not visited by anyone? A joke of an MIT in Makalle, Tigrai ? Kiosk and grocery type colleges? The fleecing of Ethiopia by Tigean state controlled conglomerate called EFFORT ? The 11% annual economic growth is a result of false government statistics backed by the IMF and others for political reasons to cover up the bankrupt economic policies of Meles Zenawi. There is little or no economic transformation other than benefits for the Tigrean sold out bourgeoisie and for foreign investors of all sorts. No wonder the fat degenerate Saudi billionaire Sheikh Alamoudi wailed that he has lost his right hand with the death of Meles (thereby disappointing Ethiopians who had expected the Sheikh to lose more than one hand).
Meles was surely a hardworking man. It takes a lot of work to steal hundreds of millions, to push ten million people to starvation, to put thousands in prison, to supervise torture, to ruin a whole country, to chew choice Kat every afternoon and to toe the line as set by the West. It is hard work to lie day in and day out, to play the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde show all the time, to decide on big and small issues, to supervise the theft of millions of dollars by one’s own wife and cronies. Meles Zenawi has to work hard to handle and deal with so much hatred for millions of Amhras and Oromos, Gurages and Somalis, etc. and to plot and actualize their suffering and pain on a constant level. In the end he was a tiny man at al levels and he could not contain his hatred and thirst for exclusive power and mix it comfortably with his addictions. Meles Zenawi had to die by his own folly depriving his kin and ethnic fanatics their ease of riding roughshod over millions. The time of reckoning has come and those from his ethnic group who hope that some other Tigrean substitute will salvage them from the impending doom are fooling themselves dangerously.
Ethiopians have had to endure the totalitarian regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. They were ordered out to demonstrate and express support for the regime or face sanctions on basic necessities and so they went out en masse and cried “death to our enemies” and “long live Mengistu”. Some people did not even go out before they heard over State radio that they have demonstrated in favor of the “great chairman’. A similar event has taken place. The carrot and the stick to bring people out on the streets and to weep for the very man who made their life miserable and humiliated their country. A charade and as one report puts it the North Koreans are not amused by the pale imitation. Ethiopians, as we know, may be a quiet and private lot but they are wily and with their own sense of humor. It is not beyond them to cry and weep when they are actually bursting with joy. Let no one take them for dupes, no. They did not keep Ethiopia sovereign and independent by being fools even though they had and still have their share of traitors. Those in fear of losing their drone base and mercenary are shedding real tears and worried if the crisis ridden group in power may weather the storm. They have and they will have more to weep about. Amen. Aside from that, saying good riddance is in order! May his loyal friends follow him on his journey to the end of the damned!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
BOOk REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BENEATH THE LION’S GAZE
BY MAAZA MENGISTE
PUBLISHED BY JONATHAN CAPE, LONDON, 2010,
301 PAGES
IF ONLY MEAZA HAD READ KONJIT!
by Hilena Bayeh
Intro
The fact that more and more Ethiopians are putting ink to paper or typing away on the keyboards of their laptops and computers to produce books is turning out to be both good and bad. Good because our literature (in Ethiopian languages) and also in English can develop, our stories can be told, a heritage left for the coming generation. And bad because writers have become scribes like olden times, scribbling the praises of the power that be, spreading official lies as truth and retelling or recycling travesties of history. The absence of critical editors has made the slush pile, as they say in the publishing circles, non existent—any book is published and thanks to commercial printing and online publishing anyone can be a writer with a book or even a translator. Astute business men gauge the trend of the time, determine the selling subjects and plunge right on to “write” a book on the subject—it is very commercial. Ethiopia does not recognize international copyright laws and as such translators not only translate books without permission (many times badly) but they even change the persons to whom the writer had made a dedication and substitute their own dedication. . It is a wild and confusing world out there. That is why we find books nowadays explaining to us the history of this event or organization without ever really taking part in any one of them or without ever having made a research.
All this aside, it is, in my opinion, quite good to see Ethiopians writing in English. The new generation of writers like Dinaw Mengistu and Maaza Mengiste cannot help but write in English as they grew up abroad (in America in their case) and it is also commendable that their stories have not forgotten or ignored the Ethiopian reality (true more for Maaza than for Dinaw). I do not fully agree with the Wole Soyinka definition of the critic’s responsibilities “not merely to review an existing piece of work but also to create an atmosphere of appreciation and tolerance...” but I still say the critic has to take the writer’s reality into account to convey a fitting appraisal. In this respect, I concur with David Cook (African Literature: A Critical View. Longman 1977)) who wrote:
“All forms of the written word contribute to a major force of persuasion. All writings which argue important issues, reach a large public, and possess the literary qualities that are likely to make them more than merely ephemeral, not only deserve, but invite and demand critical analysis. The means by which a thoughtful public is convinced one way or another on crucial questions of real significance to a country or a continent”. (xi)
Still, one yearns for the old categorization of “pulp” literature, unworthy of critical concern but fulfilling the public’s tabloid hunger. Quite a number of books in Amharic and English could thus have been relegated to the sidelines though we as a people are still far away from saturation in the literary field. The books eulogizing Meles and Seyoum Mesfin, rewriting the history of the notorious TPLF, whitewashing the crimes and criminals of the Red Terror, attempting a Mein Kampf in a local language, biographies that are lies, memoirs that are fiction, etc contribute little of any literary or historical worth. Fortunately though, there are books like that of Konjit Berhane’s MIRKOGNA that appear out of the blue and fulfill our expectations by combining historical truth with fiction narration and giving us a readable, enjoyable book. I have my reasons for Saying ‘If Only Maaza had read Konjit!”.
The Young Writers
While my focus here is the book of Maaza Mengiste I would like to mention in passing The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (titled in England, heaven knows why, as Children of the Revolution) written by Dinaw Mengistu which, tangentially dealing with the Ethiopian Revolution of February 1974 (Maaza’s central subject or back ground) exhibits a careless approach to the historical truth of the period and Ethiopia. Dinaw, in my opinion, has also failed to mine the treasure trove of the Ethiopian émigré community in Washington Dc. Worse still, as he left Ethiopia when he was one year old, he has not lived or grown up to understand the conflict that defined that time. In one passage he writes that the Mengistu regime that launched the Red Terror nailed placards on the foreheads of its victims which proclaimed “I was a Communist!” when in actual fact Mengistu and his regime considered themselves Communists and labeled their opponents anarchists or CIA agents. Or, is all this enveloped within what Maaza on her part states as “taking liberty with the reality”? If so what do we make of Lewis Nkosi’s famous assertion (in Home and Exile) cited here below on the place of the writer:
“If we assume that any competent artist who retains a minimum of objectivity in using his materials should and must reflect his society, then writers are even more important in countries undergoing revolutionary changes, where the temptations are greater to suppress any but the desirable truths”?
I am not, by any stretch of imagination, calling for a socialist realism approach to fiction--that is another subject for discussion. However, taking liberty cannot mean representing falsehood especially when the narration concerns a historical truth or a memoir. Nega Mezlekia’s sister for example has denounced him for presenting a false memoir and many Ethiopians know that an Amhara joining the sectarian and separatist Somali front (WSLF) is pure fiction. And thus the primary question as regards Maaza’s book: has she taken too much liberty with the truth that the Ethiopian reader finds herself/himself in a lurch because Maaza has boldly taken up the February 1974 Revolution as the centerpiece of her book of fiction.
Maaza’s book
Maaza is apparently burdened by the fact that she has dared to use a single family to encapsulate the momentous and bloody period. This demanded from her to create characters that are whole and represent the various trends and cleavages that convulsed families and the whole society at that period. The story of Beneath the Lion’ s Gaze revolves around a foreign educated medical doctor, Hailu, who had been awarded a watch by Emperor Haile Sellasie, his two sons-the elder Yonas conservative and inclined to praying, the youngest Dawit taken up by the underground movement of the period, the EPRP, though Maaza treads carefully and creates a non existent organization. The travails of the family, the doctor’s agreement to help a tortured revolutionary girl die, his arrest and torture and the increasing radicalization of the youngest son Dawit serve for Maaza to illustrate the tragedy of the Red Terror period. Of course the corpses of the victims were not thrown on the streets for the hyenas to feast on (it was actually to terrorize the living and their families), there were no placard nailed to the victims which said I deserved to die dear mother and no EPRP activist defying curfew and collecting the corpses at night . I assume Maaza has taken liberties here, no matter.
Maaza writes well and in a style, as a graduate with an MFA from New York University, that would surely please her western readers—of snorting hyenas, of deep brown fields, a lush patchwork of green and browns, and of a blue haze drifting down from eucalyptus trees dotting the hillsides, of clouds of dust and smoke and early morning fog. I do not agree with one reviewer who said Maaza over explains. On the contrary, some of her passages get the reader into the atmosphere of the place in the story as the following illustrates:
“Intermittent car horns melted into a long, sustained blare. Buses and trucks dodged the boys. Irritated pedestrians brushed against blue-and-white taxicabs. Everything was noisy. Sound traveled from car to pedestrian to pack animal, rising and falling over the hilly street, Aged trees dotted the roadside and drank in the cacophony. Ethiopia would remain, despite all outside influences, a mix of ancient and modern, progress and ritual sitting as uncomfortably next to each other as Communist ideals and Coptic beliefs”. (p. 116)
Except for the fact that the ideals were Soviet/ real socialism (the ideological nuance does matter) and the mix included Islamic and animist beliefs.
Maaza left the country when she was only four years old but she has evidently gone back to soak up the atmosphere though I do not know if she went back after the present vermin took over power (1991) and the city changed or before during the time of the Derg. It should be of no significance really except for the fact that she did not live that period (unlike Konjit for example) and her references (see her note and bibliography at the end) indicate not such a good choice. Maaza states, alas, that she learnt the personal and political costs of the revolution by reading Nega Mezlekia’s Notes from the Hyena’s Belly, a book of memoir that has been exposed as totally fiction by Nega’s own sister and all others who knew him (and even his authorship has been contested but that is another story). As a former EPRP leader Kiflu Tadesse’s book would rightfully be informative on the organization at that time as would be the book by Markakis and Nega Ayele while Fred Halliday, who was a Derg apologist, wrote a horrible book. Paul Henze, the former CIA and the present apologist of the Meles regime cannot be credible reference on Ethiopia of that period ( or on Ethiopia of any period for that matter) and Marina Ottaway missed the whole essence of the Revolution when she concluded so wrongly that the whole thing involved the elites and not the people. The Ottaways (Marina and David) sought to give historical and popular legitimacy to the military regime, stated the Empire was held together by the divine rule of the Emperor, denigrated the workers’ general strike that brought down the Endlakatchew government as insignificant, and Marina Ottaway, in her “Social Classes and Corporate Interests in the Ethiopian Revolution, went as far as labeling the Ethiopian workers as a labor aristocracy or an “elite privileged by the modern system.”
Bad References
In short Maaza did not have the best reference at all. Imagine someone writing on that period and failing to read the books on the Red Terror like Babile Tola’s “ To Kill A Generation: The Red Terror in Ethiopia”! This could very well explain why Maaza’s character appear cardboard and unconvincing characters to the end. Maaza has tried to remember her uncles by giving Dawit and another character the names of her uncles, Mekonnen and Solomon, but for those who knew the Revolution and the battle in the cities Dawit and Solomon appear as caricatures all the way through. For me, here is where Maaza has failed, her inability to let her characters flesh out, portray the feelings and failings of the period and its protagonists. The change of stand in Hailu and the others is not explained in a credible way. The incident at the end of the book between the main characters and the brutal soldiers is very unbelievable. Compare her characters and actions with Frehiwot and others in the Mirkogna book and the Maaza characters become, in the word of one critic, just “props”. The torture sequences are also mild though some foreign critics found them shocking and brutal. Emperor Haile Sellasie in Maaza’s book is not of course the Haile Sellasie we knew and the symbolism of the Lion, attractive as it may appear to foreigners and Ras Tafarians, is unconvincing and out of place.
Strange Coincidence?
For a writer who does not mention anywhere (neither in the Notes. bibliography or interviews) that she has previously read Hama Tuma’s much commented upon short stories collection (The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories, Heinemann, London 1993) the reader is surprised to find eerie similarities in Maaza’s novel and at least one Hama Tuma story. It could be coincidence of course but strange nonetheless. In the Case of the Prison Monger Hama’s accused person is called Major Guddu—Maaza calls Mengistu Haile Mariam Major Guddu. There was of course a Guddu Kassa in another famous book. This aside, Maaza’s story opens in a hospital (Prince Makonen—now Tikur Anbesa) with a wounded boy and then with a tortured girl whom a nurse (Almaz) and the main character Doctor Hailu gives her cyanide and help her die to escape further torture. Back in 1993 Hama Tuma's one short story (Madman, Killer, Saint, You…) deals with a doctor in the same hospital who is mobilized by a male nurse and also helps his own tortured brother to die. Same hospital, almost the same scenario—strange coincidence? The world is too small. Hama wrote his story in 1993 and Maaza in 2010—how come they are almost identical except for some changes including names and gender? A troubling question indeed.
After all is said, Maaza’s book is an interesting read. She is a promising writer and we hope the next book will show more commitment to the craft, better character building and believable dialogue and plot, less similarity to other books and plots and a better grasp of the central theme she tries to tackle. She should read MIRKOGNA of Konjit Berhane to begin with. Maaza can surely be one of the writers to make us proud so long as she realizes that the pressing social problems and experiences demand that the writer becomes relevant in more ways than one.
.
BENEATH THE LION’S GAZE
BY MAAZA MENGISTE
PUBLISHED BY JONATHAN CAPE, LONDON, 2010,
301 PAGES
IF ONLY MEAZA HAD READ KONJIT!
by Hilena Bayeh
Intro
The fact that more and more Ethiopians are putting ink to paper or typing away on the keyboards of their laptops and computers to produce books is turning out to be both good and bad. Good because our literature (in Ethiopian languages) and also in English can develop, our stories can be told, a heritage left for the coming generation. And bad because writers have become scribes like olden times, scribbling the praises of the power that be, spreading official lies as truth and retelling or recycling travesties of history. The absence of critical editors has made the slush pile, as they say in the publishing circles, non existent—any book is published and thanks to commercial printing and online publishing anyone can be a writer with a book or even a translator. Astute business men gauge the trend of the time, determine the selling subjects and plunge right on to “write” a book on the subject—it is very commercial. Ethiopia does not recognize international copyright laws and as such translators not only translate books without permission (many times badly) but they even change the persons to whom the writer had made a dedication and substitute their own dedication. . It is a wild and confusing world out there. That is why we find books nowadays explaining to us the history of this event or organization without ever really taking part in any one of them or without ever having made a research.
All this aside, it is, in my opinion, quite good to see Ethiopians writing in English. The new generation of writers like Dinaw Mengistu and Maaza Mengiste cannot help but write in English as they grew up abroad (in America in their case) and it is also commendable that their stories have not forgotten or ignored the Ethiopian reality (true more for Maaza than for Dinaw). I do not fully agree with the Wole Soyinka definition of the critic’s responsibilities “not merely to review an existing piece of work but also to create an atmosphere of appreciation and tolerance...” but I still say the critic has to take the writer’s reality into account to convey a fitting appraisal. In this respect, I concur with David Cook (African Literature: A Critical View. Longman 1977)) who wrote:
“All forms of the written word contribute to a major force of persuasion. All writings which argue important issues, reach a large public, and possess the literary qualities that are likely to make them more than merely ephemeral, not only deserve, but invite and demand critical analysis. The means by which a thoughtful public is convinced one way or another on crucial questions of real significance to a country or a continent”. (xi)
Still, one yearns for the old categorization of “pulp” literature, unworthy of critical concern but fulfilling the public’s tabloid hunger. Quite a number of books in Amharic and English could thus have been relegated to the sidelines though we as a people are still far away from saturation in the literary field. The books eulogizing Meles and Seyoum Mesfin, rewriting the history of the notorious TPLF, whitewashing the crimes and criminals of the Red Terror, attempting a Mein Kampf in a local language, biographies that are lies, memoirs that are fiction, etc contribute little of any literary or historical worth. Fortunately though, there are books like that of Konjit Berhane’s MIRKOGNA that appear out of the blue and fulfill our expectations by combining historical truth with fiction narration and giving us a readable, enjoyable book. I have my reasons for Saying ‘If Only Maaza had read Konjit!”.
The Young Writers
While my focus here is the book of Maaza Mengiste I would like to mention in passing The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (titled in England, heaven knows why, as Children of the Revolution) written by Dinaw Mengistu which, tangentially dealing with the Ethiopian Revolution of February 1974 (Maaza’s central subject or back ground) exhibits a careless approach to the historical truth of the period and Ethiopia. Dinaw, in my opinion, has also failed to mine the treasure trove of the Ethiopian émigré community in Washington Dc. Worse still, as he left Ethiopia when he was one year old, he has not lived or grown up to understand the conflict that defined that time. In one passage he writes that the Mengistu regime that launched the Red Terror nailed placards on the foreheads of its victims which proclaimed “I was a Communist!” when in actual fact Mengistu and his regime considered themselves Communists and labeled their opponents anarchists or CIA agents. Or, is all this enveloped within what Maaza on her part states as “taking liberty with the reality”? If so what do we make of Lewis Nkosi’s famous assertion (in Home and Exile) cited here below on the place of the writer:
“If we assume that any competent artist who retains a minimum of objectivity in using his materials should and must reflect his society, then writers are even more important in countries undergoing revolutionary changes, where the temptations are greater to suppress any but the desirable truths”?
I am not, by any stretch of imagination, calling for a socialist realism approach to fiction--that is another subject for discussion. However, taking liberty cannot mean representing falsehood especially when the narration concerns a historical truth or a memoir. Nega Mezlekia’s sister for example has denounced him for presenting a false memoir and many Ethiopians know that an Amhara joining the sectarian and separatist Somali front (WSLF) is pure fiction. And thus the primary question as regards Maaza’s book: has she taken too much liberty with the truth that the Ethiopian reader finds herself/himself in a lurch because Maaza has boldly taken up the February 1974 Revolution as the centerpiece of her book of fiction.
Maaza’s book
Maaza is apparently burdened by the fact that she has dared to use a single family to encapsulate the momentous and bloody period. This demanded from her to create characters that are whole and represent the various trends and cleavages that convulsed families and the whole society at that period. The story of Beneath the Lion’ s Gaze revolves around a foreign educated medical doctor, Hailu, who had been awarded a watch by Emperor Haile Sellasie, his two sons-the elder Yonas conservative and inclined to praying, the youngest Dawit taken up by the underground movement of the period, the EPRP, though Maaza treads carefully and creates a non existent organization. The travails of the family, the doctor’s agreement to help a tortured revolutionary girl die, his arrest and torture and the increasing radicalization of the youngest son Dawit serve for Maaza to illustrate the tragedy of the Red Terror period. Of course the corpses of the victims were not thrown on the streets for the hyenas to feast on (it was actually to terrorize the living and their families), there were no placard nailed to the victims which said I deserved to die dear mother and no EPRP activist defying curfew and collecting the corpses at night . I assume Maaza has taken liberties here, no matter.
Maaza writes well and in a style, as a graduate with an MFA from New York University, that would surely please her western readers—of snorting hyenas, of deep brown fields, a lush patchwork of green and browns, and of a blue haze drifting down from eucalyptus trees dotting the hillsides, of clouds of dust and smoke and early morning fog. I do not agree with one reviewer who said Maaza over explains. On the contrary, some of her passages get the reader into the atmosphere of the place in the story as the following illustrates:
“Intermittent car horns melted into a long, sustained blare. Buses and trucks dodged the boys. Irritated pedestrians brushed against blue-and-white taxicabs. Everything was noisy. Sound traveled from car to pedestrian to pack animal, rising and falling over the hilly street, Aged trees dotted the roadside and drank in the cacophony. Ethiopia would remain, despite all outside influences, a mix of ancient and modern, progress and ritual sitting as uncomfortably next to each other as Communist ideals and Coptic beliefs”. (p. 116)
Except for the fact that the ideals were Soviet/ real socialism (the ideological nuance does matter) and the mix included Islamic and animist beliefs.
Maaza left the country when she was only four years old but she has evidently gone back to soak up the atmosphere though I do not know if she went back after the present vermin took over power (1991) and the city changed or before during the time of the Derg. It should be of no significance really except for the fact that she did not live that period (unlike Konjit for example) and her references (see her note and bibliography at the end) indicate not such a good choice. Maaza states, alas, that she learnt the personal and political costs of the revolution by reading Nega Mezlekia’s Notes from the Hyena’s Belly, a book of memoir that has been exposed as totally fiction by Nega’s own sister and all others who knew him (and even his authorship has been contested but that is another story). As a former EPRP leader Kiflu Tadesse’s book would rightfully be informative on the organization at that time as would be the book by Markakis and Nega Ayele while Fred Halliday, who was a Derg apologist, wrote a horrible book. Paul Henze, the former CIA and the present apologist of the Meles regime cannot be credible reference on Ethiopia of that period ( or on Ethiopia of any period for that matter) and Marina Ottaway missed the whole essence of the Revolution when she concluded so wrongly that the whole thing involved the elites and not the people. The Ottaways (Marina and David) sought to give historical and popular legitimacy to the military regime, stated the Empire was held together by the divine rule of the Emperor, denigrated the workers’ general strike that brought down the Endlakatchew government as insignificant, and Marina Ottaway, in her “Social Classes and Corporate Interests in the Ethiopian Revolution, went as far as labeling the Ethiopian workers as a labor aristocracy or an “elite privileged by the modern system.”
Bad References
In short Maaza did not have the best reference at all. Imagine someone writing on that period and failing to read the books on the Red Terror like Babile Tola’s “ To Kill A Generation: The Red Terror in Ethiopia”! This could very well explain why Maaza’s character appear cardboard and unconvincing characters to the end. Maaza has tried to remember her uncles by giving Dawit and another character the names of her uncles, Mekonnen and Solomon, but for those who knew the Revolution and the battle in the cities Dawit and Solomon appear as caricatures all the way through. For me, here is where Maaza has failed, her inability to let her characters flesh out, portray the feelings and failings of the period and its protagonists. The change of stand in Hailu and the others is not explained in a credible way. The incident at the end of the book between the main characters and the brutal soldiers is very unbelievable. Compare her characters and actions with Frehiwot and others in the Mirkogna book and the Maaza characters become, in the word of one critic, just “props”. The torture sequences are also mild though some foreign critics found them shocking and brutal. Emperor Haile Sellasie in Maaza’s book is not of course the Haile Sellasie we knew and the symbolism of the Lion, attractive as it may appear to foreigners and Ras Tafarians, is unconvincing and out of place.
Strange Coincidence?
For a writer who does not mention anywhere (neither in the Notes. bibliography or interviews) that she has previously read Hama Tuma’s much commented upon short stories collection (The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories, Heinemann, London 1993) the reader is surprised to find eerie similarities in Maaza’s novel and at least one Hama Tuma story. It could be coincidence of course but strange nonetheless. In the Case of the Prison Monger Hama’s accused person is called Major Guddu—Maaza calls Mengistu Haile Mariam Major Guddu. There was of course a Guddu Kassa in another famous book. This aside, Maaza’s story opens in a hospital (Prince Makonen—now Tikur Anbesa) with a wounded boy and then with a tortured girl whom a nurse (Almaz) and the main character Doctor Hailu gives her cyanide and help her die to escape further torture. Back in 1993 Hama Tuma's one short story (Madman, Killer, Saint, You…) deals with a doctor in the same hospital who is mobilized by a male nurse and also helps his own tortured brother to die. Same hospital, almost the same scenario—strange coincidence? The world is too small. Hama wrote his story in 1993 and Maaza in 2010—how come they are almost identical except for some changes including names and gender? A troubling question indeed.
After all is said, Maaza’s book is an interesting read. She is a promising writer and we hope the next book will show more commitment to the craft, better character building and believable dialogue and plot, less similarity to other books and plots and a better grasp of the central theme she tries to tackle. She should read MIRKOGNA of Konjit Berhane to begin with. Maaza can surely be one of the writers to make us proud so long as she realizes that the pressing social problems and experiences demand that the writer becomes relevant in more ways than one.
.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
THE FARCE CALLED KONY (2012)
THE FARCE CALLED KONY (2012)
To avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me start out by stating that Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) , the relative of the equally infamous self declared witch Alice Lakwena ( frequented by many top Kenyan officials in Nairobi) is no joke at all. He is one who should not be taken lightly. For twenty years, he had led a rebellion against Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni, committed atrocities. Kidnapped children, chopped off ears, noses and lips, and, notwithstanding those foreigners who say he has no program at all, he did plan to set up different system in Uganda with, perhaps, himself as the top prophet.
The group called Invisible Children that uploaded the film called Kony 2012 is also no joke at all. Their film on Kony was seen by millions in just 48 hours and the group raised $ 5 million in the process. The group claims the money raised would be used for positive construction work and projects in Northern Uganda (where Kony’s rebel operate) even though last year the group raised $8.6 million and used only 32% of the fund for services in Northern Uganda. The white man as the savior is a worn out and threadbare theme—money is the issue and so called charity organizations who claim to wail for us clean their crocodile tears with lots of dollars ostensibly raised to help us Africans. The Kony 2012 film has caught the attention of millions though it is superficial and glosses over the real problems of Uganda. Invisible Children NGO or Co calls for and backs American military intervention in Uganda. Obama has obliged sending a hundred Special Forces operatives to assist the Uganda army (Africa Command officers were in Uganda before). Museveni’s regime is an ally of Washington in the so called war against terror, it is presently in Mogadishu trying to fulfill America’s bidding (as is Meles Zenawi). Hence, American military presence in Uganda or any other African country for that matter does not augur well for the continent even though there are naïve African souls sleeping what Senghor called “ the great sleep of the negro” and dreaming of an American modern cavalry saving Africa. In your dreams! A coterie of Hollywood actors/stars have also joined the fray and are calling on all of us to make Kony famous so that he comes infamous and gets “taken down” not only by Angelina Jolie (who seems to think real life is a movie when she declared if left alone with Kony in a room she would take down this person—“I hate him” is what she said--) but by the big power America. Such oversimplification of the Ugandan problem or the Kony dilemma has helped the Invisible Children group to pander to sentiments and to raise money but will not help an iota in finishing off the Kony problem which is actually a Ugandan political problem.
Advocating for American military intervention in support of the Ugandan regime is more than wrong. The Uganda regime has been continuously accused of violating the human rights of the citizens, the last February general election was a fraud with Museveni violating the Constitution to run for the third time, opposition leaders are continuously repressed, the Uganda army conducting operations in the Central African Republic has been accused of atrocities against civilians. This is the army that the Invisible Children group and its Hollywood cabal want to get American military help and assistance. Here is the fact that those in the know tell us to heed:
“The adult population recalls the brutal government-directed counterinsurgency campaign, beginning in 1986, which evolved into Operation North, the first big operation in the country that people talk about as massively destructive for civilians, and which created the conditions that gave rise to the LRA of Joseph Kony and, before it, the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena. Young adults recall the time from the mid-1990s when most rural residents of the three Acholi districts were forcibly interned in camps. The Ugandan government claimed it was to "protect" them from the LRA. But there were allegations of murder, bombings, and the burnings of entire villages: first to force people into the camps, and then to force them to stay put. By 2005, the camp population grew from a few hundred thousand to over 1.8 million in the entire region - which included Teso and Lango - of which over a million were from the three Acholi districts. Comprising practically the entire rural population of the three Acholi districts, they were expected to live on handouts from relief agencies. According to the government's own Ministry of Health, the excess mortality rate in these camps was approximately 1,000 persons per week - inviting comparisons with the numbers killed by the LRA even in the worst year”. Museveni refused to sign an Amnesty Bill proposed by his own parliament. Instead, Museveni and his allies resorted to Washington’s main poodle called Luis Moreno Ocampo of the ICC and had Kony and the LRA leadership charged with crimes against humanity.
One would imagine that genocidal criminals like Bush and Blair, Kissinger and Nguema, Meles Zenawi and Deby would be on the list of the ICC. No chance. The ICC list is one to be accused of racism even. Check it:
Bashir Abu Garda, Mohamed Ali, Abadella Banda,Omar Bashir, Jean Pierre Bemba, Muamar Gadafi, Saif al Islam Gadafi,Laurent Gbagbo, Ahmed Haroum, Uhuru Kenyatta, Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti (LRA),Thomas Lubanga, William Ruto, and many more Africans. No Anglo Saxons, no pro Washington criminals and murderers. Only fools expect that all these things happen haphazardly, by accident, by luck. Uganda has discovered oil and made a deal with Tallow oil recently—this has a lot to do with American interest in Uganda. Eastern Congolese are dying in their millions for coltan, gold and other minerals. As of recently, independent South Sudan is important because of its petrol and land. The ICC indicts Kony and not the Ugandan army or government because who pays the piper does not say objectivity or fairness. Why all the hue and cry around Kony now after so many years of his barbaric rampage and when he is weak and on the verge of collapse? The demonization of Kony with his ragtag army is at best a diversion while the rebellion and overall dissatisfaction in Uganda is a serious political Ugandan problem. It is about oil and money, about land and corruption, about tyranny and ethnic grievances. The Invisible Children group’s call for American intervention and all out support to the Museveni regime, by demonizing a rather weakened Kony and LRA, is not the right call at all. Once again Westerners are playing cynical games with our misery and fate. May the demise of Kony be soon but, more importantly, may the end of the anti democratic regime of Museveni be soon and the solutions to the basic political problems of Uganda an actuality. In the meanwhile, Invisible Children will for sure make millions with the help of its U tube, American chauvinists, actors, the ICC and duped African fellow travelers.
To avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me start out by stating that Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) , the relative of the equally infamous self declared witch Alice Lakwena ( frequented by many top Kenyan officials in Nairobi) is no joke at all. He is one who should not be taken lightly. For twenty years, he had led a rebellion against Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni, committed atrocities. Kidnapped children, chopped off ears, noses and lips, and, notwithstanding those foreigners who say he has no program at all, he did plan to set up different system in Uganda with, perhaps, himself as the top prophet.
The group called Invisible Children that uploaded the film called Kony 2012 is also no joke at all. Their film on Kony was seen by millions in just 48 hours and the group raised $ 5 million in the process. The group claims the money raised would be used for positive construction work and projects in Northern Uganda (where Kony’s rebel operate) even though last year the group raised $8.6 million and used only 32% of the fund for services in Northern Uganda. The white man as the savior is a worn out and threadbare theme—money is the issue and so called charity organizations who claim to wail for us clean their crocodile tears with lots of dollars ostensibly raised to help us Africans. The Kony 2012 film has caught the attention of millions though it is superficial and glosses over the real problems of Uganda. Invisible Children NGO or Co calls for and backs American military intervention in Uganda. Obama has obliged sending a hundred Special Forces operatives to assist the Uganda army (Africa Command officers were in Uganda before). Museveni’s regime is an ally of Washington in the so called war against terror, it is presently in Mogadishu trying to fulfill America’s bidding (as is Meles Zenawi). Hence, American military presence in Uganda or any other African country for that matter does not augur well for the continent even though there are naïve African souls sleeping what Senghor called “ the great sleep of the negro” and dreaming of an American modern cavalry saving Africa. In your dreams! A coterie of Hollywood actors/stars have also joined the fray and are calling on all of us to make Kony famous so that he comes infamous and gets “taken down” not only by Angelina Jolie (who seems to think real life is a movie when she declared if left alone with Kony in a room she would take down this person—“I hate him” is what she said--) but by the big power America. Such oversimplification of the Ugandan problem or the Kony dilemma has helped the Invisible Children group to pander to sentiments and to raise money but will not help an iota in finishing off the Kony problem which is actually a Ugandan political problem.
Advocating for American military intervention in support of the Ugandan regime is more than wrong. The Uganda regime has been continuously accused of violating the human rights of the citizens, the last February general election was a fraud with Museveni violating the Constitution to run for the third time, opposition leaders are continuously repressed, the Uganda army conducting operations in the Central African Republic has been accused of atrocities against civilians. This is the army that the Invisible Children group and its Hollywood cabal want to get American military help and assistance. Here is the fact that those in the know tell us to heed:
“The adult population recalls the brutal government-directed counterinsurgency campaign, beginning in 1986, which evolved into Operation North, the first big operation in the country that people talk about as massively destructive for civilians, and which created the conditions that gave rise to the LRA of Joseph Kony and, before it, the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena. Young adults recall the time from the mid-1990s when most rural residents of the three Acholi districts were forcibly interned in camps. The Ugandan government claimed it was to "protect" them from the LRA. But there were allegations of murder, bombings, and the burnings of entire villages: first to force people into the camps, and then to force them to stay put. By 2005, the camp population grew from a few hundred thousand to over 1.8 million in the entire region - which included Teso and Lango - of which over a million were from the three Acholi districts. Comprising practically the entire rural population of the three Acholi districts, they were expected to live on handouts from relief agencies. According to the government's own Ministry of Health, the excess mortality rate in these camps was approximately 1,000 persons per week - inviting comparisons with the numbers killed by the LRA even in the worst year”. Museveni refused to sign an Amnesty Bill proposed by his own parliament. Instead, Museveni and his allies resorted to Washington’s main poodle called Luis Moreno Ocampo of the ICC and had Kony and the LRA leadership charged with crimes against humanity.
One would imagine that genocidal criminals like Bush and Blair, Kissinger and Nguema, Meles Zenawi and Deby would be on the list of the ICC. No chance. The ICC list is one to be accused of racism even. Check it:
Bashir Abu Garda, Mohamed Ali, Abadella Banda,Omar Bashir, Jean Pierre Bemba, Muamar Gadafi, Saif al Islam Gadafi,Laurent Gbagbo, Ahmed Haroum, Uhuru Kenyatta, Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti (LRA),Thomas Lubanga, William Ruto, and many more Africans. No Anglo Saxons, no pro Washington criminals and murderers. Only fools expect that all these things happen haphazardly, by accident, by luck. Uganda has discovered oil and made a deal with Tallow oil recently—this has a lot to do with American interest in Uganda. Eastern Congolese are dying in their millions for coltan, gold and other minerals. As of recently, independent South Sudan is important because of its petrol and land. The ICC indicts Kony and not the Ugandan army or government because who pays the piper does not say objectivity or fairness. Why all the hue and cry around Kony now after so many years of his barbaric rampage and when he is weak and on the verge of collapse? The demonization of Kony with his ragtag army is at best a diversion while the rebellion and overall dissatisfaction in Uganda is a serious political Ugandan problem. It is about oil and money, about land and corruption, about tyranny and ethnic grievances. The Invisible Children group’s call for American intervention and all out support to the Museveni regime, by demonizing a rather weakened Kony and LRA, is not the right call at all. Once again Westerners are playing cynical games with our misery and fate. May the demise of Kony be soon but, more importantly, may the end of the anti democratic regime of Museveni be soon and the solutions to the basic political problems of Uganda an actuality. In the meanwhile, Invisible Children will for sure make millions with the help of its U tube, American chauvinists, actors, the ICC and duped African fellow travelers.
Viva Africa—They Need Us!
Viva Africa—They Need Us!
There are quite a few people, not necessarily white, who have concluded that we Africans, if only we did not have minerals and oil, rich and fertile lands up for grabbing, (we) would be quite useless and irrelevant in the march of History. France’s embattled president even said we are just at the door of civilization and the past century and not yet in though he did not say whether it is because we did not knock, or were too lazy to bother or were kept out.
French president Sarkozy is in waters deeper than the crocodile infested Nile. His win in the next French election is appearing like the dream of riches of an impoverished African. Troubled and faced with the possibility of a resounding defeat, he has desperately come up with what he considers a panacea: attack the Africans, the black and Arab hordes with the Asians thrown in. The Immigrants. Sarkozy hopes he has found the right bogeyman to frighten the French not to vote Socialist. And we all know the French voter is a strange animal who talks left and often votes conservative. Sarkozy has also jumped on the God sent issue of a lone gun man killing French soldiers (North Africans and Caribbean by origin) and innocent Jewish children going to school. He went to Toulouse and almost shed tears as he called the killing of children a national tragedy. The same day Algeria observed the 50th year of its liberation from brutal French colonialism, a day unobserved this way or that by France. Is this the same Sarkozy who ordered the carpet bombing of Libya causing the deaths of thousands? Is this the same man who sent soldiers to meddle in Ivory Coast? The same day Sarkozy was crying about national tragedy (4 people killed of whom three were children) how many died in Gaza without a word of sympathy from him? And Syria? Actually, all this is neither here nor there. Killers of children need to be condemned in all places.
The main point is that we Africans have once again become useful. They need us. Not only for our oil, gold, coltan, fertile land, uranium and diamonds but also to act as scarecrows during elections. There are too many immigrants Sarkozy cries out with indignation stealing the main slogan of the far right National Front thus pushing people ask who really is the leader of the far right—Marine Le Pen or Sarkozy? The rightists and frightened elders who are complaining that France is no longer authentic France (whatever that means), but a sort of Untied Nations of a country, are pleased. Too many “Noirs et Arabs” (blacks and Arabs) everywhere anyway, we are not safe, all meat sold is actually Halal (this is also a campaign issue believe it or not), send the immigrants packing (Norway is trying to that with Ethiopians), immigration, immigrants, they are drowning us. Once again we Africans and Arabs and immigrants have become potent. We frighten. We are not Talibans but we frighten. We are not just miserable souls being rounded up or dying at Lampadusa but living and aggressive immigrants destabilizing Europe. We clean their toilets and streets but somehow we are stealing critical jobs from them. Wow! We are not pathetic warlords being the only ones to be tried and convicted by the racist ICC but Mamadous, Getachews, Dengs and Toures strutting on the streets of Europe and making them afraid. Honor redeemed?
I have always argued that we serve Westerners of all hues by being victims. The NGOs thrive because of us (Juba is host to some 400 of them). We starve and are of use to them. They collect money using photos of our tearful and desperate and starved children and they collect million of which we do not even se a sizeable part. Take the Kony2012 fellows who collected millions and spent only a mere 32% for the Ugandans in whose name they collected the money. War on Want and others of the 1984 Ethiopian famine are also cases in point. Liv Ullman, a Norwegian actress, visited a camp for famine victims in Ethiopia in 1984 and congratulated a camp dweller on the beauty of his hand knitted cap and the fellow (we Ethiopians are sometimes rude!) replied to her “ but I cannot eat my cap!”, Present day Livs thrive on our misery. Call them Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, etc they are out there getting publicity, making lightening visits to “war zones”, getting filmed and “arrested” in front of embassies (of course they are released promptly) to, as they say, publicize the plight of people who do not have the luxury of being detained in front of cameras and who will not see the light of day if they ever get captured or jailed. So, the charade is for them and we play along. Naive and kind souls that we are, reading the Bible while they stole our land, being filmed with tears for them to collect money and profit, we are the perennial victims. They want us out of their country but we do not demand the repatriation of thousands of French people from Cote d’Ivoire, thousands of French Foreign Legion mercenaries from Djibouti, CAR or other places. We never ask the deportation of aggressive French or American troops from the Horn of Africa, East Africa, etc. We are so welcoming, no? That is why the ongoing hue and cry against us by Sarkozy and others who think political and economic problems that they are facing are of no importance while they rile against immigrants and wail of national tragedies are indeed fakes but we like them. They are our fakes, our own crocodiles. They have made us modern day Mandingos, needed, the heart of their malaise and crisis. Who can ask for more? It is much better than being outside the gates of civilization, irrelevant, a synonym to misery and uselessness.
We have become an election issue of primary importance and we should thank Sarkozy and all European rightists for the honor. We are now relevant, of some use and role. Immigrants in France and other countries should swagger and be visible. Like it or not we should land on them, we shall come to their shores (as they did come to ours years and years ago to enslave and colonize us). They are still in Africa in their thousands (if only China had not been so far—we would have shown them the replica to their invasion of our continent), enjoying high standard of living and not cleaning African streets and toilets. Yet, we are tolerant. We are happy to be scarecrows and monsters for frightened old ladies and men and for those who keep the nightmare of virile Mandingos possessing their lily white maidens. The march of History is against their dream of keeping us away. They need us for our labor, for our tax money, for our wealth in our countries. They need us to frighten their citizens not vote rationally but to bow to their fears and prejudices. Aren’t we immigrants great?
There are quite a few people, not necessarily white, who have concluded that we Africans, if only we did not have minerals and oil, rich and fertile lands up for grabbing, (we) would be quite useless and irrelevant in the march of History. France’s embattled president even said we are just at the door of civilization and the past century and not yet in though he did not say whether it is because we did not knock, or were too lazy to bother or were kept out.
French president Sarkozy is in waters deeper than the crocodile infested Nile. His win in the next French election is appearing like the dream of riches of an impoverished African. Troubled and faced with the possibility of a resounding defeat, he has desperately come up with what he considers a panacea: attack the Africans, the black and Arab hordes with the Asians thrown in. The Immigrants. Sarkozy hopes he has found the right bogeyman to frighten the French not to vote Socialist. And we all know the French voter is a strange animal who talks left and often votes conservative. Sarkozy has also jumped on the God sent issue of a lone gun man killing French soldiers (North Africans and Caribbean by origin) and innocent Jewish children going to school. He went to Toulouse and almost shed tears as he called the killing of children a national tragedy. The same day Algeria observed the 50th year of its liberation from brutal French colonialism, a day unobserved this way or that by France. Is this the same Sarkozy who ordered the carpet bombing of Libya causing the deaths of thousands? Is this the same man who sent soldiers to meddle in Ivory Coast? The same day Sarkozy was crying about national tragedy (4 people killed of whom three were children) how many died in Gaza without a word of sympathy from him? And Syria? Actually, all this is neither here nor there. Killers of children need to be condemned in all places.
The main point is that we Africans have once again become useful. They need us. Not only for our oil, gold, coltan, fertile land, uranium and diamonds but also to act as scarecrows during elections. There are too many immigrants Sarkozy cries out with indignation stealing the main slogan of the far right National Front thus pushing people ask who really is the leader of the far right—Marine Le Pen or Sarkozy? The rightists and frightened elders who are complaining that France is no longer authentic France (whatever that means), but a sort of Untied Nations of a country, are pleased. Too many “Noirs et Arabs” (blacks and Arabs) everywhere anyway, we are not safe, all meat sold is actually Halal (this is also a campaign issue believe it or not), send the immigrants packing (Norway is trying to that with Ethiopians), immigration, immigrants, they are drowning us. Once again we Africans and Arabs and immigrants have become potent. We frighten. We are not Talibans but we frighten. We are not just miserable souls being rounded up or dying at Lampadusa but living and aggressive immigrants destabilizing Europe. We clean their toilets and streets but somehow we are stealing critical jobs from them. Wow! We are not pathetic warlords being the only ones to be tried and convicted by the racist ICC but Mamadous, Getachews, Dengs and Toures strutting on the streets of Europe and making them afraid. Honor redeemed?
I have always argued that we serve Westerners of all hues by being victims. The NGOs thrive because of us (Juba is host to some 400 of them). We starve and are of use to them. They collect money using photos of our tearful and desperate and starved children and they collect million of which we do not even se a sizeable part. Take the Kony2012 fellows who collected millions and spent only a mere 32% for the Ugandans in whose name they collected the money. War on Want and others of the 1984 Ethiopian famine are also cases in point. Liv Ullman, a Norwegian actress, visited a camp for famine victims in Ethiopia in 1984 and congratulated a camp dweller on the beauty of his hand knitted cap and the fellow (we Ethiopians are sometimes rude!) replied to her “ but I cannot eat my cap!”, Present day Livs thrive on our misery. Call them Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, etc they are out there getting publicity, making lightening visits to “war zones”, getting filmed and “arrested” in front of embassies (of course they are released promptly) to, as they say, publicize the plight of people who do not have the luxury of being detained in front of cameras and who will not see the light of day if they ever get captured or jailed. So, the charade is for them and we play along. Naive and kind souls that we are, reading the Bible while they stole our land, being filmed with tears for them to collect money and profit, we are the perennial victims. They want us out of their country but we do not demand the repatriation of thousands of French people from Cote d’Ivoire, thousands of French Foreign Legion mercenaries from Djibouti, CAR or other places. We never ask the deportation of aggressive French or American troops from the Horn of Africa, East Africa, etc. We are so welcoming, no? That is why the ongoing hue and cry against us by Sarkozy and others who think political and economic problems that they are facing are of no importance while they rile against immigrants and wail of national tragedies are indeed fakes but we like them. They are our fakes, our own crocodiles. They have made us modern day Mandingos, needed, the heart of their malaise and crisis. Who can ask for more? It is much better than being outside the gates of civilization, irrelevant, a synonym to misery and uselessness.
We have become an election issue of primary importance and we should thank Sarkozy and all European rightists for the honor. We are now relevant, of some use and role. Immigrants in France and other countries should swagger and be visible. Like it or not we should land on them, we shall come to their shores (as they did come to ours years and years ago to enslave and colonize us). They are still in Africa in their thousands (if only China had not been so far—we would have shown them the replica to their invasion of our continent), enjoying high standard of living and not cleaning African streets and toilets. Yet, we are tolerant. We are happy to be scarecrows and monsters for frightened old ladies and men and for those who keep the nightmare of virile Mandingos possessing their lily white maidens. The march of History is against their dream of keeping us away. They need us for our labor, for our tax money, for our wealth in our countries. They need us to frighten their citizens not vote rationally but to bow to their fears and prejudices. Aren’t we immigrants great?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
WHAT’S IN A CORPSE?
WHAT’S IN A CORPSE?
American Marine soldiers were captured on video peeing on the corpses of Taliban fighters. They evidently enjoyed their act, these sons of Christian and civilized America which always strives to teach us Christian democratic values. At the risk of annoying some quarters let me ask the pertinent question: what is in a corpse? Corpses have been sold, mutilated and defiled in the past.
To begin with America has refused to respect many Geneva Convention laws and rejected the ban against torture. Its troops in Afghanistan (and Iraq and other places too) are there to kill people they call their enemies. Afghanistan is not that famous for its R&R spots and considering that the Talibans are also not that gentle with corpse, one can understand the frustration of the peeing Marines. Back in History Belgian colonialists were proudly photographed holding decapitated heads, chopped of hands, etc of the Congolese (15 million died in the hands of the colonials). Colonial wars were not respectful of the bodies of the natives. The German tried to wipe out the Herero people of Namibia (the Nazis got many of their evil concepts from that campaign); the British tried their hand everywhere. Italians killed a million Ethiopians chopped of head and hands of patriots and the Italian colonial Minister Alessandro Lessona even imagined “an Ethiopia without Ethiopians”. Here is one report on the British penchant to destroy entire communities: “On 29 March 1896, Rhodes’ ally Lord Jarvis wrote to his wife that ‘I hope the natives will be pretty well exterminated . . . our plan of campaign will probably be to . . . wipe them out . . .’, while in July he wrote to his mother, suggesting that,‘. . . the best thing to do is to wipe them out . . . everything black’. In January 1897, Lord Grey wrote describing the mood in the colony: even the missionary Father Biehler felt ‘the only chance for the future of the [Mashona] race is to exterminate the whole people, both male and female, over the age of 14! ” In such situations, it is not possible to expect niceties towards the dead.
Still, the American penchant to be disastrously grotesque does shock. The crimes in the Philippines, later made paler by the Indochina experience, were beyond measure and many corpses were mutilated. The Vietnam experience was of course worse. Dead Vietnamese were defiled in one way or another. In Iraq, Abu Ghraib photos of dead Iraqis being defiled by American troops are now followed by American troops peeing on Taliban corpses. Guantanamo is evidence of mistreatment of the living—why expect respect for the dead? Water boarding and other brutal tortures were sued and are still being used on live prisoners—why bother for the Taliban corpses who are dead and would not feel wet or humiliated by the urines of beasts? We should also consider the fact that Americans had been defiling the corpses of Native Americans and habits refuse to die. All this said, I am the first to admit that Africans are not saints in this respect. Anti and pro Gbagbo forces in Ivory Coast torched people to death Kenyans and Ugandans beat and torch alleged thieves in a crude mob justice that also takes place in South Africa where victims are forced to drink petrol for what is called internal combustion. Samuel Doe was cut to pieces. Even Khadafy’s coprse was defiled courtesy of America, Britain and France. Decapitation, mutilation of the dead is not a strange thing to Africans. If violence is as American as apple pie the defilement of corpses is as universal as (not as matoke, sorry) but rice.
Anyway, respect for corpses has not been an American tradition at all. Check the following report:
“On September 19, 1995, two men allegedly broke into the mortuary
at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills and engaged in
sexual intercourse with two female corpses. The next day, police announced the two men were being held on suspicion of burglary.
According to police, the two men were not charged with having
intercourse with a corpse because having sex with a corpse is not illegal
in California. This left the men liable only on charges that they
broke into the mortuary and stole computer chips from a personal computer in the building”. There you go. Necrophilia is also a favorite subject of American movies and TV programs. The genre is not, alas, Horror.
Torturing and decapitating people are, in my opinion, not as bad as anything done to a corpse. Intercourse with a dead person is vile but as California law clearly puts it no crime is involved (maybe because the corpse would feel nothing). Killing innocent people by air strikes and drones is evil and not comparable to vile attacks on dead people. Lumumba’s corpse was defiled but not many in the West cared. Today militias supported by the West have raped and attacked more than half a million females in Eastern Congo. Cutting the throat of people is disgusting but the Talibans and Al Shabab type of bizarre forces enjoy it. If people pee on these killers is it poetic justice? If we say yes then we all go into the mad, mad world of criminals playing roulette with decency and hopes of a better world. The Talibans and the Marines are in their own nightmarish world of playing recklessly with our hopes and rights as human beings. The West made fun of Idi Amin and Bokassa and even alleged they were cannibals. The RUF of Sierra Leone also came to the rescue chopping of people’s hands, arms and heads. But the whole operation there was for diamonds and orchestrated by Britain in the first place.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo, Afghanistan….. The image of America is not that nice. Peeing on dead people is not going to improve their image. Obama has not been that much of a dramatic change over Bush in the political field. Frustrations abound. American soldiers as harbingers of democracy or decent values are total fiction. The soldiers who peed on corpses publicly and graphically announced that America’s promise of decency and democracy is totally false. This is a proper message to all who want to be duped by Washington. It is also possible that there are many who want for Washington to pee on them but this is not the feeling of the majority. If Americans troops only pee on dead people it is also going to be a problem for those live ones who want the urine treatment. Are Americans that selective with their brutality? If so, is discrimination involved? Must you be dead to be peed on by the agents of civilization, democracy and Christianity? Very difficult questions awaiting clear answers. Again, what’s in a corpse? Dead people have been defiled for centuries. More relevantly, live people have been defiled and peed upon for centuries. This is much more important an issue. Alas, no one seems to care. Be assured, American troops would perform more grotesque and inhuman actions in the future. Defiling corpses is a crime but more than that crime against live people is even worse. Peeing on the dead is not as bad as doing worse things on the living.
American Marine soldiers were captured on video peeing on the corpses of Taliban fighters. They evidently enjoyed their act, these sons of Christian and civilized America which always strives to teach us Christian democratic values. At the risk of annoying some quarters let me ask the pertinent question: what is in a corpse? Corpses have been sold, mutilated and defiled in the past.
To begin with America has refused to respect many Geneva Convention laws and rejected the ban against torture. Its troops in Afghanistan (and Iraq and other places too) are there to kill people they call their enemies. Afghanistan is not that famous for its R&R spots and considering that the Talibans are also not that gentle with corpse, one can understand the frustration of the peeing Marines. Back in History Belgian colonialists were proudly photographed holding decapitated heads, chopped of hands, etc of the Congolese (15 million died in the hands of the colonials). Colonial wars were not respectful of the bodies of the natives. The German tried to wipe out the Herero people of Namibia (the Nazis got many of their evil concepts from that campaign); the British tried their hand everywhere. Italians killed a million Ethiopians chopped of head and hands of patriots and the Italian colonial Minister Alessandro Lessona even imagined “an Ethiopia without Ethiopians”. Here is one report on the British penchant to destroy entire communities: “On 29 March 1896, Rhodes’ ally Lord Jarvis wrote to his wife that ‘I hope the natives will be pretty well exterminated . . . our plan of campaign will probably be to . . . wipe them out . . .’, while in July he wrote to his mother, suggesting that,‘. . . the best thing to do is to wipe them out . . . everything black’. In January 1897, Lord Grey wrote describing the mood in the colony: even the missionary Father Biehler felt ‘the only chance for the future of the [Mashona] race is to exterminate the whole people, both male and female, over the age of 14! ” In such situations, it is not possible to expect niceties towards the dead.
Still, the American penchant to be disastrously grotesque does shock. The crimes in the Philippines, later made paler by the Indochina experience, were beyond measure and many corpses were mutilated. The Vietnam experience was of course worse. Dead Vietnamese were defiled in one way or another. In Iraq, Abu Ghraib photos of dead Iraqis being defiled by American troops are now followed by American troops peeing on Taliban corpses. Guantanamo is evidence of mistreatment of the living—why expect respect for the dead? Water boarding and other brutal tortures were sued and are still being used on live prisoners—why bother for the Taliban corpses who are dead and would not feel wet or humiliated by the urines of beasts? We should also consider the fact that Americans had been defiling the corpses of Native Americans and habits refuse to die. All this said, I am the first to admit that Africans are not saints in this respect. Anti and pro Gbagbo forces in Ivory Coast torched people to death Kenyans and Ugandans beat and torch alleged thieves in a crude mob justice that also takes place in South Africa where victims are forced to drink petrol for what is called internal combustion. Samuel Doe was cut to pieces. Even Khadafy’s coprse was defiled courtesy of America, Britain and France. Decapitation, mutilation of the dead is not a strange thing to Africans. If violence is as American as apple pie the defilement of corpses is as universal as (not as matoke, sorry) but rice.
Anyway, respect for corpses has not been an American tradition at all. Check the following report:
“On September 19, 1995, two men allegedly broke into the mortuary
at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills and engaged in
sexual intercourse with two female corpses. The next day, police announced the two men were being held on suspicion of burglary.
According to police, the two men were not charged with having
intercourse with a corpse because having sex with a corpse is not illegal
in California. This left the men liable only on charges that they
broke into the mortuary and stole computer chips from a personal computer in the building”. There you go. Necrophilia is also a favorite subject of American movies and TV programs. The genre is not, alas, Horror.
Torturing and decapitating people are, in my opinion, not as bad as anything done to a corpse. Intercourse with a dead person is vile but as California law clearly puts it no crime is involved (maybe because the corpse would feel nothing). Killing innocent people by air strikes and drones is evil and not comparable to vile attacks on dead people. Lumumba’s corpse was defiled but not many in the West cared. Today militias supported by the West have raped and attacked more than half a million females in Eastern Congo. Cutting the throat of people is disgusting but the Talibans and Al Shabab type of bizarre forces enjoy it. If people pee on these killers is it poetic justice? If we say yes then we all go into the mad, mad world of criminals playing roulette with decency and hopes of a better world. The Talibans and the Marines are in their own nightmarish world of playing recklessly with our hopes and rights as human beings. The West made fun of Idi Amin and Bokassa and even alleged they were cannibals. The RUF of Sierra Leone also came to the rescue chopping of people’s hands, arms and heads. But the whole operation there was for diamonds and orchestrated by Britain in the first place.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo, Afghanistan….. The image of America is not that nice. Peeing on dead people is not going to improve their image. Obama has not been that much of a dramatic change over Bush in the political field. Frustrations abound. American soldiers as harbingers of democracy or decent values are total fiction. The soldiers who peed on corpses publicly and graphically announced that America’s promise of decency and democracy is totally false. This is a proper message to all who want to be duped by Washington. It is also possible that there are many who want for Washington to pee on them but this is not the feeling of the majority. If Americans troops only pee on dead people it is also going to be a problem for those live ones who want the urine treatment. Are Americans that selective with their brutality? If so, is discrimination involved? Must you be dead to be peed on by the agents of civilization, democracy and Christianity? Very difficult questions awaiting clear answers. Again, what’s in a corpse? Dead people have been defiled for centuries. More relevantly, live people have been defiled and peed upon for centuries. This is much more important an issue. Alas, no one seems to care. Be assured, American troops would perform more grotesque and inhuman actions in the future. Defiling corpses is a crime but more than that crime against live people is even worse. Peeing on the dead is not as bad as doing worse things on the living.
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