11/24/06

Thoughts \ Developed Thoughts \ Rants \ Raves \ Writing

06/24/2005 19:46 +0200 GMT

No

I was listening to Radio Phoenix, my favorite radio station in Lusaka, whose frequency reminds me of a difference here. Some radio frequencies are at even numbers here, as opposed to odd numbers in the US. For example, radio Phoenix is at maybe 88.2, but The X in Birmingham is at whatever it is now, 101.5. Just a subtle thing, but one of the nice little constant reminders that I'm on the other side of the planet at present.

Phone call from Eric, en Francaise, et j'etait confuse, alors nous parlons en Anglais, et j'ai comprendrais que it was Eric. Maggie would laugh at my weak efforts at communicating in French.

Tonight was a highlight, I know this despite my only having been here less than a month. But let me break from tonight for a more urgent notice.

In Zimbabwe today, the President Robert Mugabe is killing his own people. If ever there was an example of absolute power corrupting absolutely, Bob personifies it. The octogenarian Mugabe is authorizing the demolition of complete shantytowns in Harere, the capital of Zimbabwe. As I write, I am listening right now to a breathless, covert BBC report of the effects of this effort. Literally hundreds of thousands of people are reportedly being completely displaced by bulldozers plowing over their homes, and with very little allowance permitted to remove personal effects, and more hugely exemplary and troubling, infants...A two year old child was killed today because of these Mugabean efforts.

Mugabe must be stopped immediately, but the world powers will likely be stuck chatting important issues about economics (don't get me wrong) during the same exact minutes when human beings' lives are being permanently ruined.

My God, Robert Mugabe is looking more and more like Idi Amin of the 1980's Ethiopia. The world knows what is going on, a quarter of a million left homeless as a direct result of a leader of state's decision, but no one is holding him/them to account. And this is just the front end of a horrible atrocity. In Sudan, to the northeast, systematic killings of those opposed to whomever is in power has been going on for months on months on months, but all we do is say no no, that shouldn't be going on, should it. Stop that, now, would you? Yet we invest nearly a trillion US dollars in destroying and rebuilding a country in the Middle East that will likely provide cheap oil in exchange for independent power.

At the same time, we lament the horrors of the murders that occurred at a rate of 10,000 per day in Rwanda, and we wring our hands about the lack of immediate international response, and as we recall the past, we literally ignore, despite consistent, accurate information the government-subsidized killings. Is it so important that US troops die in an effort predicated on get Bin Laden? Are our priorities so poorly skewed?

Mark my words, within this year, you will hear of atrocities being committed by the Zimbabwean government, and there will be no international response, because it is occurring in Africa, and is therefore not a global priority.

Is it so dismissible that a family in Africa is left homeless, powerless, devoid of freedom, and desperate beyond all of my western comprehension? Multiply that by 100,000, at a minimum. Are we, the American machine that rules the world, so high and mighty that we don't care about this issue? My depressed-but-truthful response is, immensely, unfortunately, yes.  What a shameful blight on our civilization this is - not just on the US, but the entire world.

Do we sit back as our brother is killed, by removal of limb by limb by limb by limb, until all that is left is his heart, which our inhumane counterparts in humanity discard in a group-minded fit of human tragedy?

With my loudest voice, I say No.