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Africa Subsaharan |
More Vicious Than Rape |
2006-12-01 |
HT African Crisis; a couple of week old, but still relevant, as european peacekeepers are leaving congo. Another feel good story from africa. The atrocity reports from eastern Congo were so hellish that Western medical experts refused to believe them—at first. By Rod Nordland Warning: do not read this story if you are easily disturbed by graphic information, or are under age, or are easily upset by accounts of gruesome sexual violence. Rest at link. |
Posted by:anonymous5089 |
#10 Thank you, CF. I've been sinktrapped for saying this same thing before (less diplomatically, admittedly). I'll say it again whenever I'm able. Africa is the poster child for why poorly targeted foreign aid does more harm than good. |
Posted by: Zenster 2006-12-01 23:54 |
#9 And now Koffi is asking for even more aid - primarily for Africa. Excellent comments on this thread Zenster and No Mo Uro! |
Posted by: CrazyFool 2006-12-01 23:31 |
#8 Not about the gruesome stuff, but a memorable plea from a Kenyan economist: "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!". |
Posted by: JSU 2006-12-01 21:54 |
#7 From the article linked in post # 6:Among old Africa hands, we have a saying, usually accompanied by a shrug: "Africa wins again." This is usually said after an incident such as: So, how about all those Somalis we're shipping into Minnesota? Lots of good news there, right? Looks like I'm not the only one who feels this way. This is the grimmest possible outcome of people getting the government they deserve. Stalin could barely imagine such a nightmare. Until the outside world gathers up the courage to go in and cap such blood-ticks as Robert Mugabe, Sudan's new Islamist court, the Mogadishu war lords and their ilk, we have no business squawking about "how terrible things are in Africa." There have to be measures taken against those who would starve, rape, maim and kill for the sheer sport of it. Until that time, we have no business doing squat for the Africans. |
Posted by: Zenster 2006-12-01 20:47 |
#6 Absolutely horrific. Let Africa Sink. |
Posted by: Parabellum 2006-12-01 18:01 |
#5 no mo uro, I really appreciate your casting some light on this topic from more seasoned sources. While I cannot be overjoyed about it, there is still some cold comfort in knowing that my position is not mine alone. For anyone to decry the abject gender apartheid that goes on in the MME (Muslim Middle East) and not raise even more of a ruckus over the fate of African women is pure hipocrisy. The sheer fact of how FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is far more common in Africa only serves to emphasize the truth of this. The entire global culture of tribally entrenched male privilege has to be eradicated, root and branch. It is the source of so much misery that simple words cannot possibly convey the horrors perpetrated by this long outmoded historical artifact. |
Posted by: Zenster 2006-12-01 16:45 |
#4 Zenster- No they shouldn't sinktrap your comment. They should post it permanently on page 1. My brother was in the Peace Corps in Africa for 5+ years in the early to mid '90's. Your comments could have come from his mouth, or the mouths of any of his Peace Corps buddies (male or female). They used to say AIDS stood for Africa Is Dying Slowly. Much as Europe had to go through a horrific religious/tribal conflict (Reformation culminating in the 30 Years War) and undergo the ravages of a slow killing disease passed on by promiscuity (syphilis, which, adjusting fo the technology of the day was the equivalent of HIV) to end up with the largely good and successful Victorian set of morals, so too, it seems, must Africa go through a time of many generations of horror to eliminate whichever genes and memes result in these types of self destructive cultures. It's sad, and the Christian in me wishes there was some other way not involving such death and destruction, but I fear that humans ultimately only learn the hard way. All the education in the world by well-meaning lefty NGO's will not end this. Only those cultural practices dying out and being replaced by something more enlightened can effect the change Africa needs to move beyond this. The left will no doubt scream "Racist!" at your comment and mine, but the left has also failed to realize that the diversity industry and evangelical multiculturalism have ALREADY failed - when this you fear to criticize this behavior for fear of being "judgemental", you have gone from being naive to being an accomplice. Sorry, leftists - there ARE objective standards by which you can declare one culture superior to another, and all the wishing in the world can't change that. |
Posted by: no mo uro 2006-12-01 16:00 |
#3 I hope the moderators will not sink trap this. If they do, obviously, that is their perogative. I do not post this to be offensive or hateful. This position of mine is one that I have maintained for some time now and the above article merely confirms it. Africa and sub-Saharan Africa in particular is plagued by patriarchal tribalism to such a degree that there are few ways for women to escape out from underneath the grinding boot heel of such preferentially granted advantage. For over a decade I have advocated the distribution of subdermal longterm female contraceptives (Norplant) to all pubescent African females so that there might be hope of being released from a cycle of near-constant pregnancy and childbearing. Only something of this magnitude can even remotely begin to break the vicious pattern of subjugation and abject poverty that the vast majority of African women go through. Now for the nasty part. Even though a huge, if not disproportionate number of womens' lives are claimed by this scourge, the AIDS epidemic that ravages Africa may be one of its only hopes to finally eliminate enough of the male population whereby this beleaguered continent can make something even slightly resembling a new start. The constant genocide and gruesome mistreatment of prisoners and civilians, coupled with a spectrum of child abuse that starts with sexual molestation of infants and ends with conscienceless killers in the form of seven year-old soldiers, all point towards generation after generation of crippled minds and almost pathologically amoral or asocial individuals being liberally larded throughout the population. Much as it has been for a large portion of Africa's history. It is the advent of modern weapons and transportation that has managed to exacerbate this situation from its already extent state to the horrific levels that we witness today. I continue to wonder if there is any combination of education and medical treatment that can possibly overcome this monstrous degree of inhumanity. Such benign influence over this ongoing epidemic of physical and spiritual trauma would, of course, represent the best alternative. All signs lead me to believe that nothing of the sort can overcome the leverage provided by prerogatives of power and male privilege that continue to decimate innocent life throughout the African continent. Due to male infideleity and prostitution there are regions of Africa where the HIV/AIDS infection rate is on the order of 50% or greater. Africa is dying. From where I stand and especially after reading the linked article, it almost seems a mercy. Be it Mugabe's self-imposed catastrophe in Zimbabwe or the institution of reverse racism in South Africa, all of this indicates a degree of social mayhem that ordinary human life simply cannot survive with an unmarred spirit. I have spent most of my life longing for some sort of intervention against this insanity that besets Africa. It now appears that the only release from this moribund and entrenched patriarchal tribalism is death itself. However inhumane it sounds, depopulation of Africa through the HIV/AIDS epidemic may be more of a blessing than a curse. I can only hope that one day Africa will arise as the resource-rich and environmental treasure that it has historically been. It is unimaginable that it will ever do so until patriarchal tribalism is cast aside or naturally deselected. The HIV/AIDS plague seems to be one of the few natural mechanisms that will perform that loathsome task. |
Posted by: Zenster 2006-12-01 15:15 |
#2 just one line "10 men were killed" versus 3 pages of female victimhood. that was it. If there's any gender based violence it's that. |
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-12-01 09:29 |
#1 Probably the worst placement of an advertisement for Viagra I have ever seen. |
Posted by: cam76034 2006-12-01 08:56 |