The title of this blog comes from a Gaelic expression -"putting on the poor mouth"-which means to exaggerate the direness of one's situation in order to gain time or favour from creditors.
13 August 2006
The Red Mantis: Lord's Resistance Army
One of my favourite bloggers dave over at The Red Mantis writes regularly about the Lord's Resistance Army and the criminally ignored civil war in Uganda. I wholeheartedly recommend you read this post
I greatly appreciate the recommendation, but more than that I appreciate your outrage at this horrible blot on human history. Complaisance is what has kept this story from people's eyes for so long and it's good to know that there are a lot of people out there who genuinely care for our brothers and sisters in Africa.
Is good to see that there are some who can still concentrate on Africa. Many good specialists already talk about it as "the new Middle east" and i think they are right: and right was the blogger who stated on Sonia's blog that racism is one of the reasons people don't pay much attention to it.
Very true. Clinton got involved in Kosovo immediately when there was talk of genocide and yet he did nothing for Rwanda. President Bush seems to have followed the same trend.
Thopugh the Balkans were a bit different, and THAT war had a huge coverage from the beginning: not enough though. When they interfered, Kosovo was in ruins already. A friend of mine worked there, covering for Bosnia, and later Kosovo. While watching "underground" (by Kusturica) she made mentioned that millions of guns are in private hands. She was right. And soon Kosovo started. And any interference came too late.
"Perhaps racism is the reason Red" - for many one dead child/wymin/adult whatever in the Middle East is an icon: African victims are not, all these countries consdiered not very interesting. And that is racism, because, unless blind, one can read about the facts in the news. As for our interventions, haven't we completely and utterly fucked up those societies for a very long time? Do we need a little hijacking on our own territories to open our eyes? And jams, btw: when Osama wanted to protect darfur from its own victims, consideirng a holy war over there, how come that nobody did portest for those people? because the number is about a million or how many now? Don't tell me is not racism at the bottom. I did not comment so much abouit interventions: but the public opinion. And that - not for the first time - fails again and again. After all we are talking about tragedies created by us: all thsoe countries were colonies, or most of them. ignorance is a shame, not an excuse.
That perhaps was a bit of English understatement. I think you have got it dead right with the point that it is not interesting. It's an awful thing to say but a lot of britons (and americans and so on) look at Africa and think "oh they're starving again.. I'll put a quid in the Oxfam envelope" then forget about it. Racism does play a big part in the outlook without doubt.
As for the grab for Africa in the 19th century, of course it fucked things up badly in many ways, exploitation and artificial national boundaries are just two things that spring to mind.
Ren that child soldiers are used on both sides does not surprise me. I don't often read what Chrisopher Hitchens has to say but I can assure you he is balanced and sane compared to his brother Peter!
9 comments:
I greatly appreciate the recommendation, but more than that I appreciate your outrage at this horrible blot on human history. Complaisance is what has kept this story from people's eyes for so long and it's good to know that there are a lot of people out there who genuinely care for our brothers and sisters in Africa.
Is good to see that there are some who can still concentrate on Africa. Many good specialists already talk about it as "the new Middle east" and i think they are right: and right was the blogger who stated on Sonia's blog that racism is one of the reasons people don't pay much attention to it.
Very true. Clinton got involved in Kosovo immediately when there was talk of genocide and yet he did nothing for Rwanda. President Bush seems to have followed the same trend.
Thopugh the Balkans were a bit different, and THAT war had a huge coverage from the beginning: not enough though. When they interfered, Kosovo was in ruins already. A friend of mine worked there, covering for Bosnia, and later Kosovo. While watching "underground" (by Kusturica) she made mentioned that millions of guns are in private hands. She was right. And soon Kosovo started. And any interference came too late.
"Perhaps racism is the reason Red" - for many one dead child/wymin/adult whatever in the Middle East is an icon: African victims are not, all these countries consdiered not very interesting. And that is racism, because, unless blind, one can read about the facts in the news.
As for our interventions, haven't
we completely and utterly fucked up those societies for a very long time? Do we need a little hijacking on our own territories to open our eyes? And jams, btw: when Osama wanted to protect darfur from its own victims, consideirng a holy war over there, how come that nobody did portest for those people? because the number is about a million or how many now? Don't tell me is not racism at the bottom. I did not comment so much abouit interventions: but the public opinion. And that - not for the first time - fails again and again. After all we are talking about tragedies created by us: all thsoe countries were colonies, or most of them. ignorance is a shame, not an excuse.
That perhaps was a bit of English understatement. I think you have got it dead right with the point that it is not interesting. It's an awful thing to say but a lot of britons (and americans and so on) look at Africa and think "oh they're starving again.. I'll put a quid in the Oxfam envelope" then forget about it. Racism does play a big part in the outlook without doubt.
As for the grab for Africa in the 19th century, of course it fucked things up badly in many ways, exploitation and artificial national boundaries are just two things that spring to mind.
Excellent. This is quite interesting.
The Uganda situation is even worse, than how most cover it. Both sides use children as soldiers.
Hitchens wrote a great article in Vanity Fair about the situation, only one sided. Again both sides use child-soldiers.
I thought it worth higlighting Obokun.
Ren that child soldiers are used on both sides does not surprise me. I don't often read what Chrisopher Hitchens has to say but I can assure you he is balanced and sane compared to his brother Peter!
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