Posted on 01/05/2011 6:28:28 AM PST by Pan_Yan
When does war become genocide? When the protagonists are black people. That is the only conclusion one can draw from the unhinged claims that the Ivory Coast is on “the brink of genocide” following the disputed presidential elections and the stand-off between the incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo and president-elect Alassane Ouattara.
Unlike we in the West, Africans, it seems, never “fight wars”; they don’t “launch invasions”; they don’t have “political tensions”. They just commit genocides – barmy, inexplicable genocides, often with machetes, for no other reason than the fact that they like to kill people. Lots of people. Entire races of people if they can get away with it.
The speed and casualness, the robotic thoughtlessness, with which the term “genocide” is applied to African conflicts is extraordinary. No matter how relatively small-scale the conflict is, no matter where it is taking place in Africa, it will quickly be stamped with the G-word, marking it out as a product of exterminatory bloodlust rather than politics.
So the political clash in the Ivory Coast, which has not yet spilled over into large-scale violence, is already frantically talked up as a genocide-in-the-making. Ouattara’s envoy to the United Nations says his country is on “the brink of genocide”. The media, who love nothing more than getting a whiff of evil in the Dark Continent, have lapped it up, with headlines variously telling us that the Ivory Coast is on the “edge of”, the “precipice of” or is “close to” genocide.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Tribal societies see value in wiping out other tribes.
In many, if not most, African countries, tensions have traditionally been along tribal lines. If a Westerner does not understand how tribalism permeates all of life in African society then he does not understand African politics and clashes.
Nearly all conflicts have tribalism as a major factor. Thus, ANY conflict tends to degenerate into a tribal, i.e. “ethnic” clash. “Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.”
The rallying cry soon becomes, “The only good [fill in the blanks] is a DEAD [fill in the blanks]!” and we have genocide.
Sorry, but this asshat has no idea what he is talking about and has never actually been there to see what the difference is between war and genocide.
He just doesn’t want to do anything to stop it.
He does not want to be responsible for anything except his own self interest.
Most conservatives I know value live at all stages, from conception to natural death.
The effects of tribalism are tragic, but there isn’t anything that can be done to stop such things until people decide they want to be individuals and not tribes.
A true statement. As well, the more tribal a society is the less suited the society is for self-rule. Tribal societies require strong men to rule them.
Sometimes I think we in the USA are defining ourselves in tribalist terms, and so make democracy that much harder. We start looking for Kings to rule the tribe. Then we get people like Obama.
Yeh, thats what they do. Its called tribalism. The blue birds try to wipe out the red birds. I’m trying to be PC. LOL!
It’s Bloods vs Crips on a continental scale.
And then the Masters of Racism wonder why the world has passed them by. They are the first to blame it on colonialism. OR “Whitey is keeping them down”. Its their tribalism that keeps them trapped as cavemen. NO one individual is allowed to prosper and get ahead of the chiefs. Thus they will never see advancement.
They have to learn to look inward, particularly at the concept of tribalism and its chiefs... chief by day and the night chief. Both typically got their kingdoms via patriarchy and the LAST thing they want to hear about is DEMOCRACY. NO one can get ahead of the chiefs.
But yet they cry for aid for development... or for humanitarian reasons...... the mooches.
Genocide IS war. It’s just a war where someone loses badly. Modern semantics and word games mean very little when one takes in the entire scope of human history.
If you prefer war to genocide then have the sense to arm yourself.
Western liberal journalism calls all conflicts in Africa "genocides" to highlight the victim status of the entire content. Wars involve generals and oppostion strategies and armed troops. Two sides with conflicting agendas.
Genocides involve victims. In the liberal journalist minds, genocides blow in like hurricanes - generational remnants of the colonial climate change evil whitey brought down on the country. The whole point is to remove responsibility from the aggressors by making them events rather than humans with free will.
Genocide has arrived, like the rain.
Add to your true analysis that politics is also often along tribal lines. The governments of most sub-Saharan African countries are dominated by one tribe, usually at the expense of the others. So even when it’s just politics as the author claims, it’s often still tribal underneath, and still itching for a good tribal wipeout.
OTOH, tribalism has been pretty well suppressed in Ivory Coast politics, probably one of the reasons it’s been better off post-independence than most sub-Saharan African nations. I knew a French guy who was in a family logging operation there in colonial times, and who told me all about the place, some freaky tales. You had to be not only smart, but especially wise, to survive there.
Interesting perspective.
If they put half as much energy into building their country as they do wiping eac other out, we would be such an improved country.
If they put half as much energy into building their country as they do wiping eac other out, they would be such an improved country.
That's just it, they don't believe in their "countries", to them, countries are just lines drawn up by the colonialists.
You put that in a nutshell. If we shipped the Crips and BLoods over there, they would liekly be more integrated.
How stupid, utterly stupid, of us to bother wiht aid to them. Poland repays it’s loan, but Africa demands more money.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.