Why is African violence ignored?

New York Daily News ^ | 4-10-2003 | Stanley Crouch

[jocon307]

A couple of days ago, I went to a lunch to celebrate Paul Theroux's new book, "Dark Star Safari: Overland From Cairo to Cape Town."

"One of the epiphanies of my trip," he writes, "was the realization that where the mode of life had changed significantly in the Africa I had known, it had changed for the worse."

When Theroux and I talked, he observed that he had noticed something very strange in The New York Times in the last couple of days - a short Associated Press story about "966 victims [who] were killed in an April 3 assault on the Roman Catholic mission in Drodro and 14 surrounding villages, 50 miles northeast of Bunia, the provincial capital [of the Democratic Republic of the Congo]."

Theroux was disturbed because he had seen another story in the same edition - twice as long, by my word count - in which great concern was expressed about the declining gorilla and chimpanzee populations of Central Africa; they are being killed off by the Ebola virus and poaching.

To me, his observation is not about a greater concern for animals than for people. It is about the double standard for oppressive behavior. In other words, if those 966 people had been victims of a white colonial regime as opposed to being victims of tribal warfare, it would be a front-page story.

Black journalists, TransAfrica, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the Nation of Islam and every leftist periodical and radio station would be screaming bloody murder, and for good reason: It would be bloody murder. But it takes some imagination to blame everything, yet again, on the white man as opposed to the ever-ready demons of human nature. So such atrocities are met with silence.

That silence was also exposed on Oprah Winfrey's March 12 show about the female sex slaves of Africa who have been kidnapped, raped, mutilated, made into erotic toys and slaughtered by the thousands by tribal warriors and rebel units as brutal as any violent men in recorded history.

Again, if those women were the victims of Europeans, you can be sure American Negroes and their leftist compatriots would, correctly, scream down the moon.

But it seems we have no loud concerns about what is going on in Sierra Leone or Uganda, the two examples discussed on the Winfrey show with Naomi Wolf, the writer and journalist, and Catherine Wiesner, head of child protection programs for the International Rescue Committee in Sierra Leone.

Wolf described what she saw in Sierra Leone as an unprecedented sexual holocaust, then introduced Wiesner, whose team sends videotaped messages between abducted girls and their families. The emotional tapes have led to the release of 50 girls. "It's the most rewarding job I can think of having," Wiesner said.

Such atrocities prove that we need a single standard, let the chips fall where they may. Or we need to shut up and stop pretending we are so concerned about the troubled fates of Africans.

[jocon307]

mhking, please post to the Black Conservative thread (I don't know how to do that!)

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[cyborg]

$$$$$$$$$... that's why they're ignored.

[Kenno]

I hate to say this, but there's a very good reason the US doesn't ever want to intervene militarily in Africa.

AIDS.

It's a well-known fact that servicemen like their fun. In Africa, that "fun" is likely to be infected. The US government is well aware that the Cuban war in Angola resulted in most of the soldiers sent there being infected by prostitutes. Thus Castro quarantined them when they returned. In the US, the ACLU would never allow a quarantine.

Which is why you won't see US troops in sub-Saharan Africa any time soon.

[cyborg]

That never occured to me. Scary stuff. Perhaps the military should teach the soldiers to keep it in their pants. Besides AIDS, you also have illegitimate children (Vietnam),etc. I didn't know that about Cuba though.

[cyborg]

If you are right, that's worse than not going because there's no dollars in it or because of AIDS. Saddam was a dictator and we went into Iraq because he alleged had weapons of mass destruction and liberate the Iraqi people. However, is this example of what's going in Africa any better than Iraq? It is WORSE.

[dark_lord]

Nope. There are three real reasons.

(1) There aren't any countries there that are an effective threat to the United States - unlike Iraq.
(2) There is no good economic benefit for intervening - unlike Iraq.
(3) The only effective solution in most of those places involves shooting a few thousand black folks. Which no Republican administration would dare to do. And the Democrats aren't interested in military power projection.

So the Africans are screwed unless they solve their own problems.

[umgud]

I suspect there are at least two (and probably more) reasons; 1. Most of Africa doesn't have weapons of mass destruction and while they kill each other, they don't pose a threat to the West. 2. They don't have abundant oil. Sadly, the Mugabe's of Africa seem to have free reign.

[jim35]

Yep, I'm afraid you're right. Too bad. Isn't Africa considered France's sphere of influence? That could explain a lot, also. The trouble is, the only way to prevent the Africans from slaughtering each other is to colonize them, and run them ourselves. Aid in the form of money is wasted or stolen, food is stolen and sold for profit, etc., and warlords rule the day. A sick, sad situation. I feel sorry for them, but there's little we can do for those who will not help themselves.

[cyborg]

People like Mugabe rule over their people with an iron fist. It's the rank and file who suffer and are trapped. I believe that many Africans do want to help themselves, but the government kills, starves, rapes their children if they don't do what they say. It's sad that governments need to be threatened to get their attention.

[remitrom]

Africa is not a vital geopolitical interest. It will be in the future when China has bases on the Atlantic coast, but not until then. Whatever happens in Africa simply does not affect much of the rest of the world, and that is why it is ignored. This might not be a very moral reason, but it is reality.

[NYCVirago]

Good column.

[RJayneJ]

Well, we kind of have our hands full at the moment. What is it we are supposed to do anyway? Most of their problems don't require a military solution.

[yankeedame]

So the Africans are screwed unless they solve their own problems.

Fancy that! Expecting a country and a people to solve their own (all too often self-made) problems. What is the world coming to?

[marajade]

and they don't pose a threat with WMD...

[TheHeterodoxConservative]

Exactly.

I'm not sure the point of this article is that nothing is being done by the US, France, or whomever else from the outside, it's that there is no outcry about the attrocities.

And the reason is simple. Racism. Liberal white racism. And liberal black embarrasment that their liberal white friends are racists, who honestly believe that civilized behavior must be demanded of whites, but cannot be expected of blacks. Ugandan President Museveni has discussed this phenomenon at length several times, though he's enough of a statesman to avoid the "r" word, as well as the "l" word.

[Kenno]

Where did you get the impression I was calling for one? I was merely explaining why we're not likely to intervene there in the near future even if a good reason does come up.

[Naspino]

Africa is not civilized, their educational system is non-existent, they have nothing of value, and every possible disease and problem imaginable. Frankly the only thing we should do to Africans is tell them (1) you are morons for living in Africa and (2) move.

[Mr. Mojo]

Frankly the only thing we should do to Africans is tell them (1) you are morons for living in Africa and (2) move.

Hopefully you're not suggesting they move here.